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• • WS — Item 3 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item #3 Date: July 25, 2011 To: City Council From: Julie Bartell Re: Charter Commission Appointment Process Background At the end of 2011, eight of the fifteen positions on the Lino Lakes Charter Commission will be open for appointment /reappointment. Since nominees for appointment may be submitted to the appointing authority by the city council, the council has been reviewing the appointment process. The council directed the city clerk to centralize the appointment process at city hall, meaning that application forms would direct applicants to submit their information to city hall and the city clerk would then submit completed applications received to the chief judge. I communicated this process to the Charter Commission at their meeting on July 14. The commission acted as follows: The commission moved to affirm the appointment process as established by state statute, with the following suggestions for this year's process: - Applicants can submit their application to either the Charter Chair or the City Clerk; the application form will have both listed at the bottom; a signature line will be added to the application for both the City Clerk and the Charter Chair (to confirm receipt); After a mutual deadline for applications has been reached, the Charter Chair and the City Clerk will bring all the applications together and submit them to the chiefjudge with one neutral letter signed by both the chair and the clerk. The commission also directed that the following question be added to the application form: - Are you a qualified voter in the city? The commission questioned the League attorney's advice that state statute allows any qualified applicant to submit their application directly to the chiefjudge (see Minnesota Statute 410.05) and asked for another opinion. When the council discussed the appointment process on July 11, some additional questions arose. I have spoken with League of Minnesota Cities Attorney Scott Kelly as well as a staff person in the office of Chief Judge Bloomquist (the appointing authority) and have obtained the additional information attached.